A nail industry pro tells us how to safely remove gel nail polish at home

Whatever you do, don’t peel it off! And if you need to remove your acrylic nails, read on...

Since lockdown began we’ve had to take a lot of matters into our own hands – at-home hair dyes and DIY waxing for example - and now as the days turn into weeks it’s time to turn our attention to our nails.

While normally we’d put our nails in the hands of professionals, our gel polish mani has grown out too much to be passable now and since salons won’t be opening any time soon we turned to Katie Barnes, multi-award winning nail technician, educator and nail competition judge, who talked us through how to remove gel polish.

You’ll need:

How to safely remove gel polish

1. Remove the surface shine of your gel polish with a good condition 180 grit nail file. It needs to be as new as possible - if the file is already worn down it will take much longer. This step is imperative because the topcoat of gel polish is acetone resistant - if you apply the acetone directly to your nails without buffing off the topcoat you'll be there for a very, very long time.

2. Once you've taken the shine off your nail, use your 100 per cent acetone to soak the cotton wool part of your nail wrap and wrap it around your nail.

3. Leave the nails wrapped for ten to 20 minutes. When you remove the wraps the product should have dissolved and begun to flake off the nail. If any product is left on your nail, gently removed with an orange wood stick. Avoid metal tools as these can damage the nails. If you perfectly applies polish is still in place, apply more acetone and leave for a little longer.

4. Once you've removed the polish buff over the natural nail to remove any lines and apply copious amounts of cuticle oil. Acetone is dehydrating so your nails will need some nourishing after use

How to safely remove acrylic nails at home

If you wear acrylic nails at home, you've got quite a job on your hands to remove them. The procedure is the same, but they need to be left wrapped for between 45 minutes and an hour - though I suppose there's nothing else for us to be doing at the moment...

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